De Blasio’s Vow to Ease Reimbursement for Special Education Halts a Bill in Albany

Mayor Bill de Blasio has promised to make it easier for some parents of special-needs children to get New York City to pay for private school tuition, holding off an effort by state legislators to make him do so by law.

Parents who believe that public schools cannot meet their children’s special needs have long complained that the process of applying for tuition reimbursement is onerous and costly, entailing months of appeals and legal fees, followed by an annual re-evaluation that starts the fight all over again.

A bill that was passed by the State Senate and was before the State Assembly could have streamlined the process and done away with the annual review.

But in a statement Thursday night, Sheldon Silver, the Assembly speaker, said, “I have spoken with Mayor de Blasio and he has pledged to make administrative changes to end this practice and implement a system that is fairer to families beginning in the upcoming school year.” If the city falls short, the statement said, “the Assembly stands ready to act” on the bill.

Neither Mr. Silver nor Mr. de Blasio’s office would comment further on what changes were coming, saying details were still being worked out and would be released shortly.

Court rulings have established the right of tuition reimbursement, and the number of special-education parents applying for it has grown over the last two decades, now costing the city more than $200 million a year, according to the city’s Independent Budget Office.

Several years ago, the Education Department began challenging the applications more aggressively, using the argument that a child can be served in the city’s own special education system.

Members of New York’s Orthodox Jewish community have been particularly vocal in their objection to the city’s policies, and have argued that it should be easier to get money to send children with special needs not just to private schools, but to religious schools because their children may find that setting more familiar.

Miriam Nockenofsky, an Orthodox Jew who lives in the Kensington area of Brooklyn, found programs at Jewish schools for her two children with autism.

School officials offered them seats in public programs, but Mrs. Nockenofsky, a special-education teacher herself, said those settings were not appropriate for her children’s skill levels. So she applied for reimbursement of their tuition, which she said ran $75,000 to $80,000 per child, per year.

The application process starts with a hearing, and can go on through two successive appeals. The process must be repeated for each student, for each year.

Though Mrs. Nockenofsky was reimbursed, she said the system was pointlessly arduous. “We have to wait six to nine months for this whole process,” she said, “and then we have to wait an additional time — who knows how long — to get an answer how much money it will be, and then the school has to wait even longer to get paid.”

In addition to school fees, the city was obligated to pay her legal expenses, which she said amounted to $11,000 a year.

The agreement between Mr. de Blasio and Mr. Silver, both Democrats, comes after the latest of three somewhat tortured attempts at statewide legislation, led in large part by New York’s Orthodox Jewish community.

A 2012 bill that would have required school officials to consider “home life and family background” when deciding where to place children passed both houses of the Legislature, but Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, also a Democrat, vetoed it, objecting to “an overly broad and ambiguous mandate.” A year later, a modified bill that made no reference to family background was introduced but never made it to his desk.

It was opposed by the New York State School Boards Association, which has argued, among other points, that annual reviews are necessary because children’s needs change.

That bill was modified again, to apply only to New York City. It had already passed the Senate and was scheduled to come up for a vote this week in the final hours of the Assembly’s annual session.

Mr. de Blasio opposed that bill. Hours before the scheduled vote, a spokesman said the mayor shared “the deep concern of parents who find themselves embroiled in legal action year after year” but urged “the state to hold off on adopting new legislation while we resolve these problems at the city level.”

Agudath Israel of America, an advocacy group for ultra-Orthodox Jews that had been active in lobbying for the legislation, hailed the new agreement as a victory. The organization released a video profusely praising God, the mayor and a number of Albany legislators.

But Mrs. Nockenofsky remains skeptical, saying: “As powerful as the mayor is, so what? It’s not going to do anything. This has to be a law. If it’s not a law nobody has to listen to it.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A22 of the New York edition with the headline: De Blasio’s Vow to Ease Reimbursement for Special Education Halts a Bill in Albany. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe